What a strange, strange year. Although political absurdity is to be expected during congressional midterm campaigns, there has been a new wave of it emitting from the mouths of those who routinely castigate the decision to topple Hussein. Some of the in-vogue refutations and accusations of 03-04, have ever so gently morphed into what are now utter contradictions. While they have been repeated ad nauseum, it would be helpful to expose their apparent inconsistency.

Where we were once surely going to install a friendly puppet  the Saddam-with-a-different-mustache cliché  were now scorned for allowing truly democratic elections, popular referendums, and consensual governance where parties and blocs we otherwise wouldnt elect in New England have come to power in Babylon. Were to believe we at first did not want to democratize Iraq, then wanted to, and now have failed to do so; overlooking that the theocrats and Iranian agents in the Iraqi parliament  even the most theological  wholeheartedly reject the Wilayat al Faqih doctrine of sharia law and theocratic rule that the clerical mullahs in Tehran endorse. We wrongly fret, but rightly guard against, Iranian influence in Iraq, while it is more likely a constitutional Shia-led government in Iraq will undermine (and thus influence) fundamentalist Iran.

But it continues, both here and abroad, getting weirder as the moments pass. Months-old cartoon depictions, unflattering European documentaries, and faux stories of a desecrated Quran have led to mass Islamic riots from Nigeria to Malaysia  killing dozens in the process. For a period of time, the number of cars aflame on Parisian streets dwarfed that of the Sunni Triangle.

When a U.S. airstrike inside sovereign Pakistani territory  so sovereign no Pakistani authority can or will access it  is aimed at killing the physician-turned-terrorist Ayman al Zawahiri, the Pakistani street (a bunch clenched fists and nothing more) went berserk, claiming the strike killed civilians. When it became clear our missile barrage indeed killed top al Qaidists, the masses in Islamabad fell silent, perhaps going through a period of introspective reflection, as they now mistakenly damned those who, just a few weeks prior, came to their rescue in earthquake-annihilated villages  feeding, clothing, and sheltering the same borderland tribesmen of Pakistan that have welcomed the likes of bin Laden and Dr. al Zawahiri for years.

Amidst the madness, scores of Filipino students protested what was an upcoming joint Filipino-U.S. military training exercise in Balikatan, aimed at combating the Philippines al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf organization. As per usual, citizens of a nation-state either nonchalant in allowing jihadists to operate or incapable of putting them out of business damned any cooperative action between their government and ours to conduct appropriate counterterrorism operations. The signs and banners were blasé and unoriginal: No to Balikatan! Down with U.S. Hegemony! No to Colonialism! Topple Bush!

One, however, aroused my interest in hindsight: Yankees Go Home  Or Else Bring Your Body Bags! The sign, held by a visibly angry, probably unemployed, teeth-gnashing Filipino youth, had the expected braggadocio drawings of a disfigured American flag and a pretty cute skull-and-bones motif. Two days later, that region of the Philippines suffered a devastating mudslide, killing thousands. It wasnt Chinese carriers, Russian divisions, or European commanders, but U.S. Marines  in Balikatan much to the previous chagrin of Filipinos  that responded to the disaster scene, moving boulders and digging through the wreckage. What was once a taunt to bring their own body bags became a desperate cry from underneath the rubble to those warmongering Americans to bring those same body bags for now-alternative purposes.

And in regards to Iraq  and context  Washington is no more sane. A solemn Jack Murtha wrongly chastises our armed forces as broken, a cantankerous Howard Dean suggests we will lose, and a monotone (and no longer well-tanned) John Kerry misquotes our generals in the field to suggest U.S. forces foster the insurrection, and therefore should be withdrawn, before complaining we did not send enough troops, only to later conclude that American soldiers terrorize women and children in the dark of the night.

After suggesting a hasty retreat and then being asked what we were to do if, upon withdrawing, Iraq were to fall into the control of seventh-century fascistic Wahhabis like Abu Musab al Zarqawi, an unhinged Senator Boxer suggested a loony notion akin to reinvading:  Theyd be history in five minutes. Itd be very easy for us to act. Meanwhile in the background, microorganisms like Dennis Kucinich ankle-bite, antiwar activist and media darling Cindy Sheehan attends protests hosted by pro-war (well, pro-Soviet war) organizations, and self-interested Republicans  fearful of their political futures  distance themselves from the long, just, humane, necessary, and unpopular process of Middle Eastern liberalization, all but giving up on those people.

After whining for a more detailed analysis of Iraqs security forces, pundits proclaimed such forces regressed, citing independent Iraqi units have reduced in number, failing to comprehend that the standard for independent units was raised, and thus reduced the number of those particular battalions, all the while improving the standard of Iraqi fighters, raising their overall numbers, and elevating the bar for what we consider to be a completely independent unit (operating without American oversight). When a new Pentagon update cites an enhancement in Iraqi battalions and overall force-levels, rather than applaud our ahead-of-schedule training  232,000 Iraqis under arms, presently  our newspapers, editorialists, and columnists do us the great disservice of regurgitating the same grievance of less independent units that they raised, and had explained to them by smarter people, months ago.

At the onset, we were implored not to remove a genocidal fascist, because the Baathists could launch a retaliatory strike using terrorists as proxies, and now must accept the new conventional wisdom that there was no link between Iraq and al Qaida  overlooking the difference between an established cooperative and an apparently nonexistent collaborative link, offers of asylum to bin Laden, meetings in Khartoum, connections to other third-party jihadist networks, and the housing of Abdul Rahman Yasin (indicted for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center), Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas (coined the bin Ladens of the 1980s), and others, all sheltered by Baghdad before the war.

The theory goes a secular regime like Husseins would not cooperate with religious fundamentalists. This is faulty logic both in regards to Iraq and to the entire subcontinent, where Islamic autocracies operate like pseudo-mafia families: they have differences, kill each other from time to time, but align themselves together to further advance their own purposes. Secularists in Syria support religious radicals in Lebanon; Shiite fundamentalists in Iran subsidize Sunni jihadsts in Gaza; pan-Arabists in Libya fund pan-Islamists in the West Bank; Wahhabis cooperate with Salafists; kings with monarchs; theocrats with irreligious strongmen. In fact, in cases where these is a commonality in theology or ideology, the two parties often clash for influence, be it Damascus opposing Iraq in 1991 or the House of Saud hunting down bin Ladenists inside the Kingdom.

We were promised we would lose thousands  to take Baghdad alone. Five days in we were assured it was all but lost (apparently a 24-hour sandstorm is Vietnam Redux). Some twenty-one days and 140 deaths later, one of the most brilliant takedowns and regime decapitations in modern military history was simply brushed under the rug; there were, after all, looted Mesopotamian vases to worry about. We were warned not to intervene, because Hussein would use his chemicals, yet after the initial incursion, and with the apparent lack thereof of such weaponry, we are to believe Bush lied, kids died  overlooking the seventeen ceasefire violations, the past use, possession, and admittance of such weapons, international prewar consensus, and exonerating postbellum commissions.

What are we to make of this hyena-like hysteria? Whenever there is a legitimate detraction from this war, there is an antidotal detraction that is contradictory, and more often than not the same person uses both. It is a new kind of obstructionism  failing to concede that anything is going right, or, upon a concession, with a flurry of yeah, buts and second-guess, knee-jerk reactionism. Obstructionists switch, sometimes in the same debate, between labeling the U.S. mission as either one of an imperialist or of an incompetent. Either we shouldnt do what we certainly can do  the bully role (usually popular after a won war)  or we cant do what we seek to do (and therefore should not try)  the helpless role (popular both before and during a war).

And yet hundreds of thousands of American combatants go on  7,000 miles away, in odd places like Djibouti, Ramadi, and Tal Afar  with the difficulties of harsh terrain, hostile surroundings, language barriers, cultural differences, and the IED. All this and more without the luxuries of tenured intellectuals and sophisticated academics explaining to them the socioeconomic reasons why people want them killed. They must be wondering what the noise is all about.

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